Let’s talk farming and fertilisers! So green revolution onwards, Punjab had a heavy dependency on fertilisers. Chemicals were heavily used in fertilisers which were so heavily used in farming that they didn’t just remain in the soil, (con't)

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they also leached into the waterway systems. And of course, in Punjab, everyone uses wells right? So all the drinking water was polluted with dozens of chemicals that are harmful. This is why Punjab (Malwa region especially) has such a high rate of cancer.
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There are other diseases and illnesses linked to this as well. You will also find brithdefects and sterility. Skin cancer and respiratory cancer are most prevalent. A lot of farmers are spraying their crops without any protective gear, so it easily gets into their airways.

Many farmers lack education, so they genuinely do not understand why they are getting sick. Even if some farmers know the dangers of fertilisers, they still continue to use them because without the fertiliser the crops don’t yield the same amount they used to with fertiliser.

Its a shitty vicious cycle they are stuck in. If they don’t use fertiliser, there isn’t enough crop at the end of the day. If they do use fertiliser bad health, but they don’t see health visually, they see it years later.
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The corporates who gave out these fertilisers new EXACTLY what they were doing. They basically sold people poison. To smaller farmers which were already struggling to compete, the government gave them incentives and didn’t educate them on what the long term consequences would be

So another issue that falls in with this is over farming. So back in the day, farmers used to grow about 3 different crops per year. Each season would have its own crop. That would give the soil enough time to regain some nutrients.

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But with fertilisers, it was promoted that you can do four crops a year. Some farmers even tried to do more. So the soil never had the time to regain the nutrients its lost. So fertiliser depleted the nutrients from the soil faster as well.

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There are different farming techniques used to make sure soil remains nutrient rich, but fertilisers and over farming did go hand in hand. It would take YEARS for the soil to clean out.
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Please read about debt bondage. But quickly, India uses debt bondage to suppress ppl. The bank or whoever they borrowed from deploy goons and thugs to harass people if they do anything other than what is expected of them.
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So long story short, this is another way the government and corporates screwed over farmers. Even after these laws are repealed, the struggle doesn’t end.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274424063_Water_Pollution_with_Special_Reference_to_Pesticide_Contamination_in_India